Movies - The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

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	Movies - The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a short story by Alan Sillitoe, as well as the name of the collection in which the story has been published. The story concerns a young man in a borstal who seeks solace in distance running.

Musical adaptations

The British heavy metal group Iron Maiden adapted the short story into the song of the same name on their Somewhere in Time album. Another British group, Belle and Sebastian, adapted the title for the song "Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner" on their 2001 EP, Jonathan David.

Film adaptation

It was made into a film in 1962, with a screenplay by Sillitoe and directed by Tony Richardson, one of new young directors emerging from documentary films, specifically a series of 1950s filmmakers known as the Free Cinema Movement. It stars Tom Courtenay, Michael Redgrave, Alec McCowen and James Bolam.

As described in imdb.com, it tells the story of "a rebellious youth, sentenced to a boy's reformatory for robbing a bakery, who rises through the ranks of the institution through his prowess as a long distance runner. During his solitary runs, reveries of his life and times before his incarceration lead him to re-evaluate his privileged status as the Governor's prize runner."

Set in a rather grim environment of 1960s Britain, like other films which deal with rebellious youth, it's a story of how the Courtney character chooses to defy authority and in the end win his own self esteem (at the probable personal cost of continued confinement). The film places its characters thoroughly in their social milieu. Class consciousness abounds throughout: the "them" and "us" notions which Richardson shows us (Redgrave's proper gentleman of a school's head in contrast to many of the young working class inmates) portrays the very basis of British society.

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